Sorry for a potential repeat if this has been pointed out before. But can we simply not change the name of threads anymore ? I legitimately cannot find the toggle for that. Only sticky, lock or delete.

Thread name.

@Hibnotix (accounts on multiple sites) has made MM-themed aesthetic files to be used for this leaderboard, specifically animated background and trophies. I have put them in so you can see how they look.

Well, you likely cannot see how all the trophies look, because we only have two runners. Third and fourth places are a large gem and a heart container.

A different trophy loadout could be argued, as some of the other Klonoa boards use the smaller dreamstone sprite that's not present here.

We also thought of updating the colors of the board.

Out of 4 color schemes, I went for the last one : https://imgur.com/a/aMPMwIQ

Will leave it as the default board aesthetic if unchallenged I guess.

Listing update issues I haven't heard people talk a lot about :

• When you are viewing a full-run section of a leaderboard, everytime you click on the sub-categories, you're teleported to the top of the page. This isn't the case when clicking on categories. This one I can see being very annoying in general, it might be good to fix it soon.

• Graphs have lost the ability to show multiple timelines at the same time. A bit of a shame, but probably wasn't a bug more than it was a conscious decision. However, you still don't have the ability to zoom into the graph. When you have dozens of dots (triangles now) very close to one another, you can't really decipher anything. Though I guess the history tab solves this to some extent.

• When I was linking videos in posts I wrote, I would surround them with < > to force them to not show the video (when it wasn't necessary or redundant) while the page itself was still accessible via a simple click. But now, this doesn't work anymore, and all the places I've written to now displays all of the videos I have ever linked. The videos also take a huge amount of screen space, and slow down the page when scrolled upon. I don't see myself going over all of my posts and fixing that stuff, given I don't even know how to not have the video show up with this new writing format. I guess that also means I don't know what to do moving forward.

• When browsing the audio log page (for super moderators only), it does not appear possible anymore to filter entries through more than one parameter. I found that a slight waste.

• (New one) the per-game settings about allowing runners to submit resources and guides whether you have a run or not... are locked off even for super moderators ? It's all grayed out. How are we supposed to use it then ?

After nearly three weeks, we have added the categories.

Sorry in advance, but I have moved duology to the second board. I have made a mistake in my planning for that category. It would have required the tweaking of all the sub-categories rules, and having their text include the case for when you play multiple games. A process which would have certainly overcomplicated them and made them very tiresome to read.

Have fun people.

Since then, most of the conversation has happened on the server.

Here is the summary of what we have agreed upon. It will be pushed forward if nothing else arises :

1. 0 Dreamstones

L’sV category. Will be in the category extension leaderboard. Timed using IGT, like a normal full-game run. Will have two sub-categories :

• Traditional (meant to replicate the category found on PS2 : normal support, no IGT Abuse)
• Unrestricted (our modern spin on the category. Basically your IGT abuse category. Relevant part is you can retry sections without as much penalty, which is more than handy in this difficult category. Also expected to be a couple minutes faster than traditional)

2. Granny%

DtP speedrun. Will be in the category extension leaderboard. Timed using IGT, time you get after defeating Gelg Bolm (technically, when you land on the ground after dealing the final hit, springs included). No gameplay specifications, IGT abuse is allowed.

3. Full Duology

Will be in the main leaderboard, therefore have access to all main sub-categories. Timed using IGT, we add up the time of both full-game runs (and the milliseconds of all three extras). The order of the games played is unimportant. As a recall, PC players must respect the FPS regulations, no matter the game.

I omitted this, but for 3) Neil actually suggested the namy granny%.

If no one says anything (especially interested players), we may go with that instead of what I wrote.

A bit late, sorry.

So the category extension leaderboard has been created some time ago, it’s this : https://www.speedrun.com/klonoaprsce

Now we can start discussing about the categories themselves :

1. 0 dreamstones

This category is for Lunatea’s Veil only. As far as we know, something similar isn’t possible in the wii and remaster of the first game. It was an already existing category in the PS2 one, and we are considering importing over here.

Additionally, it requires the support jump. And a difficulty other than hard, because at some point, you need to take two points of damage.

The first question is, do we open multiple difficulties, or do we set it to only one ? If we set it to one, do we choose normal ?

Second question, do we allow pause abuse ? At high enough skill level, you wouldn’t need to pause warp to retry sections because you get them first try. But for everyone else, the ability would make itself be worthwhile,. As if you play on easy, without death planes around, bringing 15 hp Klonoa down would be a very tedious task. Since it’s a category of a lesser standing, maybe we could afford it.

For the timing, we could use IGT and time the game the same way we do in the normal speedruns.

We beat the main game without collecting any gems (implied : you can obviously die to go back in time). While it wouldn’t be necessary for verification, you could decide to show the global stage score screen at the end of the run. All of them should be at 0 by the end of things.

2. duology speedrun

Simply beat both games back to back.

Do we allow starting with 2 and finishing with 1 ?

We would keep IGT (I was considering writing about the idea RTA instead. But its downsides are numerous). This way the timing system would be very simple. It's the time of both games combined.

What difficulty ? What category ? What mode ? Any% normal standard/support ? Or else, the fastest ways to clear the games, as in easy support IGT abuse ? Speaking of the latter, how do we do, allow it unconditionally ?

3. Hurt Granny speedruns (name unconfirmed)

Would be the memiest category in the whole series so far. You start from the beginning of DtP, reach Gelg Bolm, hit granny with a Moo, free her and have her confront you.

Most importantly, how do we time the end of the run ? If we go IGT, then the only realistic way of ending the run would be after Gelg Bolm is defeated, as the timer would stop and be very easily readable. IGT stops during cutscenes, so we wouldn’t be able to do anything with ending the run at the exact line… unless we go RTA.

When you think about it… it’s basically a speedrun of the first half of the game, with this version of the Gelg Bolm fight being slightly different (different enough to affect the time ?). I assume everyone is still okay with this though.

Again, what category(ies) ? Pause abuse ?

Really not simple decisions.

I will probably have forgotten about certain game aspects, so my apologies in advance.

We'll definitely do it later. (Which probably equals to very soon)"

Alright then. Will add the board whenever I can.

So I was definitely going to do a mistake... perhaps even a big one. But it's all clear now. Thanks for the help.

Hello. Me and the Klonoa speedrunning community might be interested in adding a category extension to one of its games in the close future : (https://www.speedrun.com/klonoaprs)

As the lead moderator of the game, I will be the one adding it. However, I'm having doubts over the intended procedure.

I understand you have to do it from : https://www.speedrun.com/knowledgebase/supporthub/game-adjustment. I assume "Request New Game Or Series" isn't the way to go. Rather, going Request Adjustment To Current Game > Game Type. I select the game in question. I then cross the Category Extension box. Doing so, the "Base game" prompt shows up, on which I write the name of the game again ? I'm just unsure of how this system work, how each of these prompts affect the outcome of your request. And I wouldn't want to make a mistake.

I'm sure it's something simple. But I don't know better than asking here.

Alright, so about five days have passed, and some discussions have happened since, so we can probably move on.

Unfortunately, not a lot of people have given their input on this. It’s a bit unclear what we’ll do next, or if the path we'll take might end up being a good one in the long run. I personally have a lot of doubts and uncertainties with how to proceed.

But that definitely doesn’t mean we won’t add these categories. We’re gonna get started with something.

And I think it might ultimately be the safe move, to open up a category extension leaderboard (Which in the past I may have possibly wrongly called “misc category leaderboard”). This is because we will have full freedom of how we want these categories to look like (as in, not plenty of empty spaces. Or else, restrict the amount of ways to play the category in order to make it simpler to get into). A freedom we do not have with the main leaderboard. We may add any new categories there. It will be the second half of the leaderboard, in sort, with this one being the first.

Although there will be a news post about it once it opens up, I have this feeling that this extension leaderboard won’t have as much visibility as the main one. At the same time, any new category or way to play the game we will open from now on will probably never be as popular or close to the categories of the main leaderboard. So I don’t know if it will matter much.

If nothing gets said, I'll go and do the formalities to add the new board.

Hello.

Recently, people have expressed the desire of opening up new categories for the game. We can mention the PS2 L’sV equivalent to 0 dreamstones. Or, the act of running both games at once, commonly seen in other game series out there, referred by « duology » or more.

These are completely legitimate category ideas that we would have no problems adding (after we discuss how to proceed with them). However, doing so right now, might be impractical for reasons we need to discuss. Some level change might be required first.

Some technical explanation about the leaderboard. Whenever a new category gets added, it will be attributed the sub-categories you know, about run objectives, difficulties, and play modes. These sub-categories appear thanks to leaderboard variables that moderators set up at the back of the board.

It all works fine when the category in question has no issues being attributed all those sub-categories. It’s the case with stuff like all visions. However, that is not the case of 0 dreamstones, as it requires specific game settings to be beatable. You can only do it with support mode, and a difficulty setting other than hard. It doesn’t really fit as a sub-category. If we give them to it anyways, it would create a lot of empty spaces, and of course that would look really ugly and confusing. So our other option would be to place it as a standalone category, next to the main DtP and L’sV tabs. But as you understand, 0 dreamstones will still be subject to displaying all the sub-categories. Out of the 24 different play modes, only 3 will be playable, and the rest will forever go unused, hence looking quite ugly and unoptimised.

I do know of a solution to this problem, and if I personally could have gone back in time, when the leaderboard was being created, we could have avoided this issue. But now, the leaderboard is fully built, and there are over 400 submissions. By the nature of the required changes that I see, I am not confident in my abilities to carry this process through, without accidentally breaking something in the leaderboard, turning entire rus invisible, losing myself in this mess.

So how would we go about adding this category if we can’t change things ? In truth, there is another solution. But allow me to talk about the other suggested category first.

Duology would be about running both DtP and L’sV (and I’ll leave the details for when we design it). It would definitely need to be its own category.

The question is, how would we play it ? I don’t have much knowledge about how to handle these kinds of speedruns, so I will need your input. Apparently though, people like it to be simple. That the focus is put on beating multiple games quickly, not so much so in specific ways. Of course, it’s difficult to execute that idea with KPRS, as from the get go you need to choose a difficulty (which can be switched whenever in the run). You can also decide to play with support mode, yielding a completely different speedrun. Nearly everything in KPRS has this big aspect to consider, we can hardly turn away from it. So for this duology speedrun, we have the choice of either enabling a finite ways to play it, all of them at once, or only one. It’s a tough question really. Do people really want 24 categories to run that ? And depending on what we choose, we may still end up with the problem 0 dreamstones meets, where only one or two out of the sub categories will be used and the rest will forever act as a disturbance.

...But what if we could simply avoid this hurdle altogether ? What if we open up a brand new leaderboard ? It’s usually called an extended category leaderboard, although I wouldn’t call it as such. A mere continuation of the main leaderboard, as it should have been if everything went right and if src's leaderboard building system was more flexible. Of course however, it may also be the place for more miscellaneous categories. It is disconnected to the first leaderboard, and has its own system, structure design, variables… making it suddenly very easy to maintain smaller sized categories in clean fashion.

If we go this route, it might take a bit of a time to go through the formalities. I assume all moderators of the first board will also go to the second one. And the leaderboard discussion place will still happen in the first one.

What do you should be done ? What are your ideas on how to handle duology speedruns ? Is there a crucial step I’ve missed ?

I watched the entirety of this 144 fps run of a (rejected) KPRS L‘sV full-game speedrun : I didn't look between the lines. But at a glance I couldn’t seem to find anything odd.

Hello.

A small post about recent developments of the IGT Abuse category. Overdue post.

Kumohachi has recently done an all visions support run on this “difficulty”. https://www.speedrun.com/klonoaprs/run/ylng36kz And from it, a lot of insight can be had about this category.

For one, there was this worrying and yet-unanswered question, about whether or not pause warping would actually save time on most checkpoints. We’re talking hitting a clock that’s on your way as early as you can, teleporting to the checkpoint respawn point, and hoping it would save time in the run by cutting some of the distance we would normally travel by foot.

By this point, most runners (of both games alike) were pause warping on checkpoints where it was abundantly clear it was saving time. But no one had attempted to learn and find out if it was worth it with the others. Until Kumohachi’s run.

And the verdict for L’sV is clear, it’s quite bountiful. A lot of clocks can be abused like this, as quite a fair bit of them actually teleport you forward as opposed to backward, relative to the checkpoint itself. Also don’t forget that whenever you “respawn”, the IGT freeze for 0.4 seconds. Even during the extras. So yea, a meaningful difference that definitely couldn’t have been predicted.

It’s interesting to note that there was only one pause warping used in a board stage, and it was the very last clock of Forgotten Path. I have to assume that based on this benchmark of a run, put into piece by Kumohachi thanks to his extensive research, pause warping in the board stages just aren’t worth it.

Also equally as interesting, in L’sV, the pause warping menuing is actually considerably faster than DtP. It takes like 7 seconds for the latter as opposed to 3 here. It makes pause warping a relatively dynamic action that doesn’t distract the player away from the gameplay and run (besides resetting the music. Poor Kingdom of Sorrow). Another point of ease for the viabiity and fun aspect of IGT abuse speedruns.

In this run, you can also see many instances of pause warping right after picking up a Mommet doll piece. This is because, unlike gems, a doll piece / phantomilian is permanently collected once you shoot them, even if you die or pause warp (only exception is quitting the stage). And this technique saves a lot of time. One good example, the way he handled the Maze of Memories section with the branching paths and three doll pieces to collect.

Now, this message was supposed to already be sent. It didn’t, and it happens that by that time, Kumohachi actually produced this invaluable IGT abuse video : With this, we now have a great idea of how much time pause warping amounts to for this game.

And the time-saves pool might be much bigger. All it takes is someone to find out if engine skips are possible via pause warping. Something @Benja apparently did once, but that no one was able to reproduce, including Kumohachi himself. This would allow for brand new Ishras Ark skips.

Honestly, the category is interesting enough now that I could see it becoming more popular in the future.

DtP is waiting to receive the same treatment. Who knows what will it yield.

Unrelated small information that I wanted to fit in the thread. It turns out we’ve been skipping IGT moments of the game this whole time ! Everytime you have to press the button to fire the bullet at each kingdom bells, the IGT is running. Of course, it bears no incidence on runs. I though it was interesting to mention.

And, here’s another small, but important piece of information I recently learnt about. For the longest time, I thought the 5x cutscene button only made the text go fast and nothing else. As it would on the original, with the fast text button. You’d have to press another button to actually move to the next dialogue panel. Well, apparently - and quite confusingly so – it acts as a cutscene dialogue forwarder. It’s the reason why, in the recent Tat quick grab trick recently found by the household name (), we mustn’t fast forward. As it would otherwise skip the cutscene before Tat gets close. This only matters for L’sV since you can’t wait through cutscenes in DtP anyways. And this would be good to know for anyone learning cutscene manipulation strategies.

At last.

Hello.

A small post continuing the PC FPS regulation to L’sV revision discussion.

@Takuto has since made a comprehensive comparison of L'sV gameplay with a wide degree of fps ranges (8 iterations from 20 to 500+), and that over various game instances. I am presenting it on his behalf :

Most tests were inconclusive, and the game didn’t look to be all that different, at least with a quick glance.

But the two last tests yield curious results. Both the the big spring jump and the carry-a-moo technique seems impossible at 30 fps and below.

It’s hard to say whether this is an alteration of the physics, or rather the mere impossibility of landing frame-perfect tricks because of the fps lacking such precision. Someone in the know may fill us out about this.

This discovery alone, assuming it proves the game is tied to FPS, would probably still justify removing the FPS regulations of that game.

But we don't know that. For now, the investigation must continue.

I am planning a post unrelated to this one soon enough.

(Been three weeks, not going to do anything for now) Hello.

This post is about discussing a potential layout revamp of the full-game categories of this game.

As you can see right now, there are over 7 categories, 4 of which are in misc. We have four run types : any%, 100%, all stages and 0 dreamstones. And then we have gameplay types : popkaless and popka.

We could simplify the board by reducing the amount of categories. But also, giving more visibility to the misc categories. Recent src updates made it a lot harder to spot the button leading to the misc categories. We’ve had issues over the PS1 DtP board about this.

There are multiple approaches :

• We could create a compact category system like the one found for KPRS (take a look at it if needed). It would be much more simplified of course. No difficulty variables, fewer rules. This would be a massive board simplification, reducing the amount of categories to only two (0 dreamstones would need to be separated as it doesn’t translate too well with this system). But, I’m worried that it may perhaps be too drastic of a change. I feel it would trip away the legacy and feeling of categories such as any% with or without popka.

• Instead of gathering every single run types under one roof, let’s only regroup each individual run type with its two gameplay types. We would have four game categories, for which you can choose the gameplay type once you access them (except for 0 dreamstones). All four categories could become main, so no categories are left out in misc. I feel this would retain the spirit of the old categories more.

• Same as point two, except we leave any% and any% popkaless intact. As they are by far the categories with the greatest history.

I'm split with the second and third one personally.

Each runs that needs to be moved would need to be updated, but that is fine.

At the same time, I was also considering renaming the "all stages" categories to that of "all visions". Purely for consistency sake with the DtP and KPRS board who use it.

But before doing anything, I would like to hear opinions. This time though, I will not push this forward if I don't get replies.

Hello.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a more serious discussion about something.

So, uh, here’s one.

What if I told you that we could potentially nullify the FPS regulations for PC runs of the Lunatea’s Veil remaster ? You heard that fully well. But in order to actually do so, the leaderboard will need your help. And as to why, we have to go through a couple things first...

The history of FPS regulations for PC speedruns is simple.

It was found relatively early on in the game’s life, that the physics in the DtP remaster were tied to FPS. Basically, Klonoa’s jumping height was increased with higher FPS, and bosses are affected in various ways. Check these two posts for more details. https://www.speedrun.com/klonoaprs/thread/72lfq/3#xs6k5 https://www.speedrun.com/klonoaprs/thread/72lfq/5#nyimd

As you know, PC is the only platform that can run games with different framerates. Therefore, to ensure the integrity of the game and runs for PC, it was decided that we would limit the FPS of the game to 60 for that platform. To be exact, this is the upper threshold. The lower threshold, 45, came in some time later, thanks to @MonikaMarieX and her DtP runs. More info here : https://www.speedrun.com/klonoaprs/thread/72lfq/5#nyimd

Rule wise, we required PC runners to display a FPS counter in their video. This is done so the framerate of the run can be known, and to prove the integrity of the run, if it is acceptable of course. And thing’s been like this since forever.

But if as an outsider you’re taking a look at all of this information, these links, conversations. Then you’ll quickly make out one notable observation. Where is the proof that L’sV is affected by FPS ? That it can affect speedruns in the IGT sense ?

And here’s the answer : there’s none… as of now.

When it cames to FPS regulations, at the time, both remasters were put in the same basket with no consideration for the latter. Personally, I completely overlooked that. I don’t think it necessarily was a huge leaderboard design mistake, per se. Even if let’s say, we forced pointless FPS regulations to L’sV. Then it still wouldn’t have done much harm. All runs up to this point have complied with it without issues. We’ve had to reject a couple of runs from people who didn’t learn of its existence until it was too late, and that’s it. If anything, it could have been a good move done by accident. Perhaps, L’sV gameplay and IGT truly is affected by FPS. And so, these accidental measures would have actually helped us without us realizing.

Alas, this question is exactly why we’re here today. We don’t know, and without answering it once and for all, we cannot proceed with any simplification changes. And without your help, collective help, it won’t change.

That’s not to say we absolutely need to do it. If we do nothing, then the FPS regulation will remain in place, and people will still have to put a FPS counter on their runs, like they’re used to. Everything would remain fully operational. If we do something, it will only be to simplify submission procedures for L’sV. Unlike other things we’ve had to do in the past, this matter will take the time that it needs to take, and may never happen. But at least, it’s properly made public now, so anyone can come and read about the problematic.

Now to discuss how to proceed with this research.

The first piece of information to consider is this video by @AustinSV : Following the timestamp, it looks like he explains that the Lunatea’s Veil doesn’t seem to be affected by FPS. He only mentions “speed of menus and transitions”. While these would definitely have impact over RTA, IGT is the metric we care about here, so this isn’t important.

Actually, one thing he didn’t mention is that FPS also affect the speed of the actions such as cutscene skipping and x5 fast forwarding. And so, cutscene manipulation. (For recall, this is the act of intentionally waiting during cutscenes (where IGT is inactive), so that entities loaded in the stage are allowed to move. This can be used to get more favorable enemy or platform cycles.) But, I would argue that it doesn’t matter. For one, cutscenes don’t increase the IGT. And since that’s where the technique is employed at, it doesn’t technically impact the run. Second, you cannot gain any advantages. Being able to skip faster means nothing, as the stage internal timer is also sped up just as fast. It would, again, only save some RTA. So we have to accept this one as well.

More recently, @OTP_Artikodin made two comparison videos of a couple places in the game with 60, 144 and 50 FPS respectively: & .

In the clip of the first video, he shows examples of menus loading faster or differently. Things discussed earlier in AustinSV’s video. He also recorded and compared two instances of the Leorina Crimzon Iris section in Ark Revisited, with different FPS. This section specifically, because it is known to slow down dramatically on certain consoles, so it seemed like a good spot to test for FPS gameplay differences if anything.

As you can see… no clear difference for PC. It's a low performance issue that the consoles are experiencing.

If we want to find answers, we may need to play the game on different FPS, and try and feel differences. Or maybe, we can watch gameplay videos with custom framerates. Like this one, which is laggy. (full-game run, laggy and slow fps) (full-game run, 144 fps) (Ark Revisited, 50 fps) I would really want to take a look at it myself, but I do have my hands busy.

So yea. Important topic. Game knowledge. Less restrictions. Hurray.

If you want to discuss this further and help with research, but don’t feel like replying here, there is a discord thread in the #PR2 channel.

[Icons now visible] Courtesy of amoser, I added browser tab icons for all of the Klonoa boards. Including the fangame one.

I had to replace the existing ones for the Heroes board, Moonlight Museum and this one. They were based exactly on the same thing, the klonoa extra life coin art found on the game HUD of PS1 DtP. There were some pixels of differences, but nothing that mattered much.

Now we just have to wait for the place to update them in their server for good.

[No replies in a couple days since. Made the changes]

Hello.

I would like to suggest a new information variable for runs. I explain everything in more details in the PS1 DtP forum thread, which there, the variable was just added : https://www.speedrun.com/klonoa1/thread/d3f73/1#jpdk9

But basically, it’s possible (and always so) to play the game at normal (60Hz) and slower (50 Hz) speed. 50 Hz L'sV speedruns is not what we're used seeing for sure, but they're undisputably there. Problem is, there is no way to tell the speed of the run without painstakingly manually entering the submission and checking the run. Moreover, PAL games can sometimes be played on 60 Hz, so the correlation PAL = 50 Hz, isn't possible. All in all, this lack of information both makes it difficult to find those runs, and for the players of the slower speed to find runs to compare to.

So, I propose we add a Hz variable, just like the sister board. It will not split the leaderboard or anything, the layout will remain the same as ever.

I'll leave this open for a couple days if there's any messages. After that I'll add it.

Some other time I’d like to reproperly arrange the full-game categories, as their current arrangement can definitely be simplified. That would ask of moving runs around and stuff like that. But I’m busy for now. Unless some of the other mods want to get on it.

[After four days of no activity, I made the change. I went and introduced a "Hz" variable, and filled all runs with it]

Hello.

Before getting started with the contents of my post, I want to point out that the name of this thread has been changed, and its function repurposed to now serve as the main place for leaderboard discussion of the game.

This is a self statement, but I think it wasn’t a wise decision to have created many threads over every single medium to big changes. Hopefully this should help keep the amount of threads down to a limit. As for the existing smaller threads… we can’t delete them, nor are able to merge them. Will have to live with them.

Alright. With this message, I am proposing the implementation of a new information variable to all runs. This information variable, akin to the game version variable, or disk speed variable, would better help describe each runs. But, not only that, as you will see.

This new information is about the Hz run component, practically equivalent to running speed of the game. All versions of the game run at 60Hz, full speed, except PAL, which is at 5/6 speed.

But, this isn’t actually entirely true. There are a couple submissions who are allegedly played on the PAL version, and yet, the game speed is clearly 60 Hz. https://www.speedrun.com/klonoa1/run/zpqgo48y PSTV also apparently allows to play PAL games at 60 Hz. https://www.speedrun.com/klonoa1/run/y8qp071y And finally, there is a bug that has been known to arise with the USA version of the game when purchasing the game off PSN, where the game can be slowed down to 50 Hz (with sometimes, the whole audio pitched down). I do sadly not have footage of this. As a placeholder, take Klonoa’s catchphrase or some gameplay excerpt of the game, lower the pitch, and there you have it.

So, the game variable cannot help us determine alone if a run is 60 Hz and 50 Hz.

But why would this variable be created in the first place ? Well, there would be a couple reasons.

First of all, it would allow to make such runs easier to find. Between the runs that are in reality 60 Hz, and the PAL submissions whose footage are lost and we’re met with the impossibility of finding out about their Hz, and their very small number in general, it’s particularly annoying to look for them.

Second, it would assist 50 Hz players in finding and comparing runs of the kind much more easily, most notably via the filter option. While 50 Hz gameplay is official and fully acceptable to be played on, quite naturally, RTA wise, it suffers a massive time disadvantage compared to 60 Hz gameplay. Meaning the best runs of which usually sit in the middle.

And third, it would enable us to create a Hz distinction for Balue’s Tower ILs. As indeed, 50 Hz gameplay affect the extra timer, so even though you’re playing slower and have slightly more leeway with timing, the timer will not take this slowness into account. Therefore, without any distinction of some kind, fundamentally incomparable times will coexist and prove to be misleading and inconvenient.

Now, about how to add this. As you read, I first mentioned creating a new run variable. And this implies one thing. For the Balue’s Tower leaderboard, it implies that it will not prevent a 50 Hz run to hold first place over a 60 Hz run. There will be a way to filter runs so you only want to see one of them, and besides, you will know how to identify run and not blindly compare the two. But, there is no hard separation, and I’m aware this may annoy some.

Of course, there are other alternative to this design. With what src allows us to do.

One of them would consist of simply adding sub-categories depending on your Hz. For every category, full-game run and IL. But while this would work fair and square, I feel it would take too much space, and would make that split look very important, when in reality it wouldn’t even affect 1% of submissions, and these sub-categories would most likely be empty all the time. (This is how it would look like : https://imgur.com/a/Ku6ySep)

The other one would be to only establish a Hz sub-category for the extra, and add a Hz information variable anywhere else. Simple in theory, unfortunately less convenient than it sounds in src practice. A variable may either affect all full-game runs, all ILs runs, or a single one of either group. But never more than one. Which means… we would need a duplicate variable for every single IL (because surely enough, one day they will be added)… except Balue’s Tower. From the user point of view, it would also look perfect. But the price would be paid in terms of loss of leaderboard long term structure stability. If leaderboard customization was more expressive, we would be able to do this with two or three variables. But right now, you need like a dozen more. Not fun.

And thus, The simplest, easiest and most efficient method is the “all Hz run information variable everywhere” approach. And it’s downsides are small and quite frankly very manageable.

I will add this new variable in a couple days, and fill every single submissions with it, if nothing transpires since then. Also don't worry, it's easy.

Unrelated to the topic of this post, but I’d like to point out one thing about the PAL version. It must be brought to light that, outside Hz, and in-game different language displays, it is currently impossible to distinguish between USA version and PAL version gameplay. A detection method would be very much appreciated.